


Driving Away From Problems is a Lot Faster Than Running From Them

by lunarlychallenged



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M, but they forget it at home, me???? write nonsensical things???? more likely than you think, roadtrip au, they share one braincell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:01:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22655170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarlychallenged/pseuds/lunarlychallenged
Summary: Buffy was in the middle of a crisis (not even a mid-life crisis, since her life was supposed to end in a couple of hours), and there was only one person she could count on to encourage her rash, selfish behavior.Or, Buffy decides to run after she finds out about the prophecy at the end of season one.
Relationships: Xander Harris/Buffy Summers
Comments: 5
Kudos: 50





	Driving Away From Problems is a Lot Faster Than Running From Them

So here’s the thing—Willow was too idealistic. Giles was too busy treating her like the Slayer to treat her like a sixteen year old. Buffy’s mom didn’t know what was going on. And Angel—well. Buffy didn’t have the time or the motivation to unpack all of that baggage.

So Buffy was in the middle of a crisis (not even a mid-life crisis, since her life was supposed to end in a couple of hours), and there was only one person she could count on to encourage her rash, selfish behavior.

Buffy was surprised to hear country music filtering through the door; she made a mental note not to let him pick the music. She would have said that country music was crap right to his face, but he didn’t answer the door when she rang the doorbell. So instead of walking through his front door with an apology and a request, she was standing outside his window with a pebble to throw, like a guy in a John Hughes movie. Or like a horny savage.

(Or maybe those things were one and the same; she would have to ask Xander.)

She lobbed the first pebble and cursed when it didn’t even make it to the window. She sometimes felt like she was a superhero stuck in a continuous origin story. Maybe it wouldn’t matter how long she was the Slayer; maybe she would always have to _try_ to look normal instead of just looking normal. Maybe she would always be bad at that facade.

She tossed another one, and the window shattered.

“Jesus Christ,” she muttered.

“Jesus Christ,” Xander hissed, head popping through the new, spacious opening. “Buffy, what the hell?”

“It was looking a little toasty in there,” she said, trying for casual. Then, when he didn’t look less irritated, less weary, less hurt: “I’m sorry. I need to talk to you, and you didn’t answer the door.”

“I need to wallow. You’re interfering with the wallowing.”

She smiled at him, a little bit bitter. Maybe a little happy to see him, too. “I need to wallow, and I really want to wallow with you.”

(Buffy was not scared of her decision. That would imply that there was another choice to make, or a better choice to make, and there was not. She was not going to be killed when she was sixteen. She was not going to leave her mother on her own, and she was not going to let Giles live knowing that he had failed to keep her safe. She was not going to make Xander and Willow grow up this fast. Buffy Summers had a full life ahead of her, and she had every intention of living at least some of it.)

Another reason she couldn’t go to Willow: Willow would have wanted an actual plan. Willow would have wanted details, but all Buffy had was this: she did not want to die. She had known that being the Slayer was risky business, but she had gotten so used to danger that she forgot death was still on the table. She just wasn’t ready. As far as she could figure the best bet was to skip town for a while. Skip town, skip the prophecy, skip vampires and Hellmouths and demons and people who wanted her to be something more than she really was.

_Where are you going? How are you getting there? What happens if you leave? What happens when you come back? Do you not love all of us enough to save us, or take us with you?_

The inner-Willow needed to shut her pie hole. Buffy was humbled enough by asking Xander to dip out with her for a while; she didn’t need questions dragging her down.

“So I have to get out of here for the weekend, at least, and I want you to come with me,” she finished.

Xander, miracle of miracles, had not been pissy about listening to her plea. He had not tried to make it about him, or them, or whatever it was. Funny how the threat of death puts things into perspective.

“Why me?” He sat, crosslegged, on the floor in front of the bed. He held a glass of water, but he hadn’t drank from it since she started talking.

“You’re one of my best friends,” she said. “Who else?”

He considered this, head tilting to the side. “You need a ride.”

“I need a ride,” she agreed. “And you’re one of my best friends. Who else?”

He sighed, hands tightening around the glass. His head dropped forward. “Are we going to have to talk about earlier?”

Yikes. Yikes, yikes, yikes. “Not necessarily,” she said, sliding off the bed onto the floor beside him. “Though some parties involved are pretty sorry for upsetting the other parties. And some parties want to say that this doesn’t have to change things between them; not if they don’t let it.”

“I think all parties are sorry,” Xander said, still not looking at her. “And I think that some parties forgive the other parties, and want forgiveness too. This party isn’t over yet. Wait, that doesn’t fit this analogy—or is it a metaphor? _Good God—”_

“All’s forgiven,” Buffy interrupted, clapping a hand down on his knee. “Back to business. If you don’t want to come, that’s fine. I’ll find another way. But if you’re in—”

“I’m in. Totally in.” Xander looked up at her, and if his smile wasn’t at full wattage, it was close enough. “There was never any question.”

_Roadtrip Plan (Math Notebook Edition):_

_Take minivan_

_Get gas and snacks_

_Drive as far from Sunnydale as possible_

It was a pretty crappy plan, if Buffy was honest, but it was pretty on par with the BuffyandXander dynamic. He was sort of sure his mom wouldn’t report the van as stolen, and he was sort of sure he had enough allowance saved up to cover the gas-side of things; Buffy was sort of sure her mom wouldn’t flip about Buffy being gone for the weekend as long as Willow didn’t rat her out, and she was sort of sure that the money from the ‘Mom, Let Me Get My Licence and Buy a Car’ fund would pay for a few days of food.

It was a pretty crappy plan with way too many sort-ofs. That said, it was a roadtrip away from a (literally) killer prophecy. Buffy was not one to mess with a good thing, so she walked in tandem with Xander’s jaunty whistling when they left his house.

(“You were confident enough to pack clothes,” he said, eying her backpack for the first time.

“You can’t be offended,” she replied. “Like you said, there was never any question.”

“You make it sound like I’m getting predictable,” he said. In his mock-outrage, the van drifted to the side. In her absolute understanding of his behavior, she reached over and straightened the wheel without looking.)

She didn’t bother asking him where they were driving, and it added an element of excitement to what would hopefully be an unexciting vacation. It was just a lot of road, Styx on the radio, and a rapidly depleting supply of Ho Hos.

(“I thought those were study fuel.”

“They’re everything fuel, Buffy. Little Debbie works magic on me.”)

“I should have brought a cowboy hat,” Xander said, breaking a long silence. Long for them, at least; they seldom made it through a full song without somebody saying something stupid. “I look like a Californian, for sure.”

“Are we leaving Cali?”

“Heading to a new state for a new state of mind,” he said, tapping his temple as though he had said something profound. “You’ve got a lot of thinking to do.”

She straightened. “What do you mean?”

“Like, if this is the end of the whole Slayer thing, what now? And if you’re done with slaying, should you even stay in Sunnydale? And if there isn’t another Slayer until you die, who’s supposed to save everybody all the time? And—”

“Geez, lay off. You sound like if Giles and Willow had a kid.”

He made a face. “Giles can’t have sex. He’s Giles.”

Buffy laughed. “But Willow can?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. She’s making all sorts of choices these days. Moving on to greener pastures, maybe. Greener, sexier pastures.”

Choices like not going to the dance with Xander, she remembered. He’d really taken a beating from his friends in the past couple of days; while Buffy didn’t regret saying no, it did occur to her that this was the type of thing that could really make someone change. If Xander couldn’t fall back on Willow’s adolescent crush, he would have to grow up and rely on himself.

She didn’t really want him to change. It was a strange, almost intrusive thought, but there was a note of truth in it. She liked this Xander; the one who counted on her and could be counted on in return.

“Can’t get sexier than this,” Buffy said, gesturing to the two of them: junk food wrappers strewn about, a sheen of sweat, the burgeoning ‘road trip with no breaks’ smell.

“We ooze sex,” he agreed.

“We’re oozing something. Let’s find a gas station and look for hats.”

(The note on the kitchen table read, _Mom, I’ll be camping with Willow for the weekend. We have to collect leaves or something equally thrilling for an assignment. See you Monday! Love, Buffy.)_

“Both,” Xander said. He was holding a bag of licorice and a box of Mike and Ikes, hugging them close to his chest. A cheap cowboy hat balanced precariously on his head; they only had hats in children’s sizes.

“Neither,” Buffy said.

“Look, Buff, I get that we’re on a budget—”

“A very tight budget. We’re sixteen.”

“—But this is still a road trip. There are sacred traditions, and one of them is buying snacks that sate my inner ten year old. He says both, and I say okay.” Xander shook the candy at her as though the rattle would make her realize the error of her ways.

It was almost working.

“Your inner ten year old has bad taste,” she tried. “Fruit flavored candies are the worst kinds.”

“It’s fruit. It’s healthy.”

Buffy bit her lip, looking around at the poorly lit gas station. It was dingy and dead, but that probably meant that two maybe-missing teenagers would not be watched for. Their pooled money was limited, but not oh-my-God-we-might-die-soon low.

She snatched a bag of Cheez-Its off the shelf, and after a swift stroll down the aisle, a pack of Twix. “For the road trip.”

Xander grinned, broad and dashing. It wasn’t a word she normally associated with him, but it applied; all of this alone time was erasing the worry lines around his mouth and raising the brightness in his eyes. “Now you’re talking.”

(“They’re safe,” Buffy said, “right?”

“Sure,” Xander replied. “A prophecy says the way a thing is supposed to happen. If you aren’t there for your part, it probably just doesn’t happen.”

“But it didn’t say that I—”

“Until we stop for the night,” Xander said with a clenched jaw, “and we have the chance to call them, they’re safe.”

It was the middle of the night, and Xander had refused to stop every time she offered.)

Xander did not go very far from the van when he went to take a piss. She pretended that it was because he didn’t want to leave her alone, but it was probably because he was afraid of getting lost.

“Gross,” she said when he came back. “And I’ll bet that you didn’t wash your hands.”

He grinned. “I’ll have you know that the facilities here are very high quality. There was a dude with warm towels and everything. If only I’d brought money to tip.”

She tried to come up with a response, but nothing about her was feeling that fast. She was so, so tired, but she didn’t want to make him stay up alone.

His smile faded a little when he saw the way her eyelids were settling shut. “Take a nap, Buffy, Christ.”

“That’s not my middle name,” she said, smothering a yawn.

“Buffy Anne, you go to bed right now.”

Logically, Buffy knew that California had plenty of open space, but she had never seen anything like this. They were somewhere in the desert, and there was so. Much. Sky. She tilted her head back as she told Xander that she wasn’t sleeping until he did, just to try and take it all in.

“I’m barely even tired,” she lied. “I’m up this late all the time. I could even drive, if you needed to sleep.”

Buffy did not have her licence. Murdering monsters was one thing; getting them caught because she was a terrible driver was something else entirely.

Her eyes were already shutting.

“Sleep, Slayer. Let me do this one thing.”

She tried to tell Xander that he did a million things for her, all the time. She really tried, but all that came out was a groan.

Xander ran a hand through her hair, soft and careful. He had seen her fight hideous, ageless monsters. He had watched her kill things, watched her torture things for information. Were it the other way around, she could not touch him like he was a precious, breakable thing. Xander was truly full of wonders.

“That’s right, kid. Go to sleep.”

She gave one more contented hum before she drifted off.

(Buffy couldn’t make the call, so Xander was the one to hold the payphone to his face. There was something so soft about the way his eyes closed with Willow picked up the phone, something so gentle about the way he actually spoke to her.

“Nothing happened,” he said after he hung up. “Creepy crawlies were out and about, but nothing actually happened.”

Buffy didn’t think that teens were supposed to cry at 5 AM as often as she did, but Xander was crying too, so she was not ashamed.)

Xander, it turned out, liked the Backstreet Boys. He liked having the windows down, just a little bit, at all times. He did not like it when the air vents in the car pointed right at him, he wiped his fingers on his pants even if he had a napkin, and he drank fountain drinks as fast as he could to keep the ice from watering them down.

It made Buffy a little bit anxious to be noticing all of those things, because she knew exactly why it was happening.

There’s something strange about knowing somebody is in love with you; it really makes you think. You may think something like: ‘why do I always attract the loonies; how did I not notice; how do I go about this without breaking their heart; I honestly never thought about them that way.’ You may think something like: ‘I don’t have time for this.’

Buffy, not much of a thinker, did not bother thinking about Xander’s very obvious feelings until they were put right in front of her, and even then she only thought about the fact that she did not have feelings for him at that exact moment.

A day had passed, and she became incredibly aware of him.

“You’re a savage,” she said.

“I licked off the Cheeto dust before wiping my fingers on my pants,” he argued. “That makes me a barbarian at most.”

“There are napkins right here,” she said. She lifted a McDonalds bag and shook it so they would both hear the napkins at the bottom. “Savage.”

He spluttered for a second. She could see the way his lips tilted up, the way his eyes were soft even though they were on the road.

How could she have ignored the way he looked around her?

“At least I have good taste in music,” he finally said.

“No.”

“A good sense of style,” he said, not bothering to argue.

“You wear clothes,” she conceded, “but that’s the best I can say.”

(She liked the way he dressed; she just could not call it stylish.)

“I have good taste in friends,” he said, sugary-sweet.

Buffy grinned then, full-stop. “Willow is fantastic. I will give you that one.”

He nudged her with his elbow. “Buff.”

“I wouldn’t call Giles your friend,” she hedged. Buffy felt like she was relaxing for the first time in days, weeks, months. Sure, this was just a weekend off, but it was actual time off. It was time when she didn’t have to

(couldn’t)

think about destiny, about the people she was supposed to protect, about the fact that her life was probably mostly over. She sometimes came close to feeling like this during movie nights with her friends. She sometimes pretended to feel like this when she was with Angel; she sometimes wished she could feel like this when she was with Angel. This was the first time in ages that she allowed herself to be really calm, and Xander let her.

“Buffy,” he said.

“I can’t say you made a good choice being friends with me,” she said honestly. “It was very stupid, all things considered.”

“I have no regrets.”

Neither did Buffy. That was a part of the problem. She reached over to cover his hand with hers. “Maybe not, but maybe you should.”

“You’re a fiend,” he said, not unhappily. He sighed, looking at the road, then at her hand. His head turned to look at his literal blind spot, and then to look at her, his figurative one. 

“Oh?”

“You know how selfish I am. I am a man of simple pleasures, and one of them is having you alive.” He dragged a hand through his hair, knees holding the wheel in place so he wouldn’t have to move the hand Buffy held. “You knew I was the only one whipped enough to come with you, so I’m the one you asked. It wasn’t that you actually wanted _me_ to go with you.”

“You’re one of my best friends,” she said. She readjusted her hand so her fingers notched between his. He didn’t flip his hand over, that would have been too intimate, but his fingers spread a little to make more room for hers.

(It was too intimate.)

“Who else?”

(If they kept going like this, Buffy had enough money to be gone for at least a week. She didn’t say so to Xander, who was just waiting for her to say that she was ready to turn around and head home.)

Xander offered to go shopping with her when she decided retail therapy was the best sort, but she gently told him that she needed time alone.

(“I’m shopping for lady things.”

“I’ll have you know that lady things are my favorite kind. I love ladies.”

“You won’t love them for long if you don’t let me shop by myself.”)

It wasn’t the shopping that she needed, though she found the cutest pair of sunglasses. Roadtrip aesthetics need good sunglasses. What she really needed was time to think. Time to think about the Master, about Giles, about her own future.

The day-and-a-half away from Sunnydale had calmed her heart some; had given her the ability to think about the problem from a detached perspective. An unclouded head really only told her one thing: she didn’t hate Giles and Angel for keeping the prophecy a secret. She hates the Master for wanting to kill her, and she hated the Universe for making her a Slayer in the first place, but she didn’t hate people for making difficult choices when they were scared and unhappy.

(Would she have made a different choice? Maybe not.)

Aside from that non-feeling, Buffy just knew that she was tired. Tired physically, tired emotionally, maybe even tired spiritually. She wanted to sleep for a million years, and then she wanted somebody to hug her for a million years after that.

(Surprisingly, it was not Angel that she wanted to hug.)

(Surprisingly, she imagined that Xander would do the job justice.)

(Unsurprisingly, Buffy was hit with the thought that Willow might not hate her for that.)

Buffy pushed the want and the weariness to the side. She also wanted cheese fries, and those were a lot easier to come by.

(How many times could she look at Xander’s (surprisingly fantastic) butt and call it an accident? Asking for a friend.)

“I want more syrup,” Buffy frowned, looking at a stack of pancakes already drowning in it. She cut into it, but when she stabbed a chunk, the saturated dough fell apart.

“It looks like you need it,” Xander deadpanned. He sank his teeth into a hamburger, cheeks bulging when he smiled at her continued efforts.

“I’m on vacation,” she said. “I have to indulge. Where’s the waitress?”

The waitress, a girl who had to be around their age, was talking to a couple of other servers. The diner was full, but it felt like it was full of people who came here for lunch every day. Buffy had never been a regular in a place where she would be recognized, but it seemed like greetings were called to every other person who walked in.

(She felt out of place in that sort of familiarity; Xander looked like he belonged in a place like this.)

Buffy raised her hand, realized that she looked like a high schooler hoping to be called on, and tried to cover it with a wave. The waitress either didn’t see her or ignored her, opting instead to continue her chat.

“Rude,” Buffy huffed.

“Let me try,” Xander said. He put a hand in the air, grinning wide enough for his molars to show. It fell short of charming, landing somewhere between smarmy and childish. Buffy had to hide her own smile in her mug of coffee.

The waitress ignored his wave, and he lowered his arm, dejected.

“Teenagers,” Buffy offered. “They don’t know a good thing when it’s right in front of their face.”

His answering smile was close-lipped; that hit a little too close to home. Part of her wanted to ease his mind by telling him that there was some definite inner-conflict going on. The other part was just relieved that she could think more before she had to make up her mind. They ate in silence for a few minutes, but the waitress did eventually swing by.

“That looked like a deep conversation,” Buffy said.

The waitress had the grace to look sheepish. “Sorry. A girl we know asked for a table for two, but the second person never showed.”

Buffy and Xander perked up. Gossip. She pressed her leg against his; _let me handle this._

“No kidding? Who was she waiting for?”

“Her boyfriend,” the waitress said, leaning in with equal parts delight and shame. Gossip with strangers was surely wrong, but Buffy was well-versed in girl talk. If she asked, people wanted to answer. “He stands her up, like, every other week. There’s sort of a bet on who’ll break things off first.”

“Who’re you putting money on?”

“He’ll break up with her. She’s clearly more invested in the relationship if she put up with it for this long.” The waitress left then, promising to bring syrup, coffee, and a check.

(Buffy started to ask for two checks, but this time it was Xander to press a leg against her.)

“That’s wild,” Buffy said. “I would dump a guy who stood me up, no hesitation.”

Xander shoved the last half of his sandwich in his mouth in one go. “Sure. You’d have to be crazy to date somebody you can’t count on.”

She wanted to agree, wanted to say that she would never put up with that, wanted to wax poetic about how crappy guys could be. She was so ready to, but when she opened her mouth, she thought of Angel. She thought of living in different worlds. She thought about conflicting schedules, good intentions, and a failure to follow through.

“Maybe he has a good reason,” she said, but it was nearly a question.

“There isn’t a good enough reason,” Xander said. “Guys don’t put up with that from you, Buff, so you can’t put up with it from them.”

It was then, as he finished his sentence, that Xander’s brain caught up with his mouth. “Oh, God, that’s not what I’m talking about, I swear.”

The waitress brought the syrup, but Buffy decided to take a few minutes in the bathroom to collect herself instead of finishing her food.

(“A room for two,” Xander singsonged, carrying her backpack.

“Shut up.”

“And only one bed.”

“Xander, I swear—”

He sang a terrible rendition of ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight,’ and she wondered when he had stopped hurting about her rejection. She then wondered when she stopped feeling weird about him having feelings for her.)

Stupid slaying, with stupid sleep schedules. Driving all day had knocked Xander out like a light, but she was staring at a cheap motel ceiling despite it being two in the morning.

They were in the middle of Arizona, and Buffy liked to imagine them driving farther and farther and farther, until they reached the East Coast and the ocean was foreign and familiar and she could pretend none of this had ever happened.

(Buffy was never stood up on a date before she became the Slayer.)

They could be high school dropouts; they could get jobs in coffee shops or grocery stores.

(Now, Buffy was a bad girlfriend for humans. Now, Buffy was in a relationship with a vampire that really couldn’t go anywhere, and left both of them dissatisfied with what little they could get from each other.)

They would find some dingy apartment. They would listen to the Backstreet Boys and each as many fruity candies as Xander wanted, as long as he stayed.

(Buffy was so tired of being in a relationship that always fell short of expectations. She didn’t like to think about that in Sunnydale, since that was all she’d ever found there; new state, new state of mind.) 

“Xander,” she whispered.

There was no reply, and the silence felt as heavy as ever.

“I don’t think Angel and I are going to work out,” she told the darkness.

She did not say it out loud, but the thoughts were just as loud as the words had been: _I don’t think a relationship can work if the people can’t rely on each other. I think we’ve been pretending that attraction can make up for a lack of trust._

Then, because the quiet was too loud, “I don’t think I trust him.”

The darkness didn’t say anything back, but Xander’s hand found hers. He didn’t say anything, which was sort of a relief. If he had, he definitely would have figured out that she was crying.

(Buffy was very sad, but she was also happier than she had been in a long time. Was that possible?)

There were two Buffys, Buffies, Buffi; the first was the real one, with some ridiculous powers and a fate worse than death. The second was one that Buffy imagined during all (all, all) of her freetime. The other Buffy was not the Slayer. She was a regular high schooler, doing whatever regular high schoolers did. She dated gorgeous boys, and she was a good girlfriend. She liked to imagine that other Buffy, because she felt that both Buffys deserved something better than the real one was getting.

The real Buffy was standing in a concessions line for a drive-in movie. They were in some podunk town in New Mexico—Xander would have remembered the name, but Buffy was more interested in the signs for _an actual drive-in movie, Xander, ohmigod._

“It smells like sex here,” he was saying conversationally.

“No,” she yelped. “It smells like salt. There’s popcorn everywhere, perv.”

“Tell yourself whatever you need to, but all I’m getting is that nobody is here to watch ‘The Fly.’” He grinned, dodging her elbow as he stepped forward to order. He ordered for her, side-eying to make sure he was getting what she wanted. She ignored what he was saying, assuming he would get it right, and looked at the wonky collar of his very wrinkled shirt.

Xander was not, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the type of the imaginary Buffy. That other Buffy liked Pretty Boys. She liked guys who didn’t tease, and she liked guys who were just a little bit out of reach. Buffy had always taken that into account; she never allowed herself to look at Xander and think that _maybe, if things were different._ If things were different, he would not have been a blip on her radar. 

He handed her a box of popcorn, way too small for its price, and led the way to his mom’s minivan. “If only you had a pickup truck,” she lamented. “We could have put a bunch of pillows and blankets in the back.”

He gave the van an appraising once-over. “Popping the trunk just isn’t the same.”

“And reclining on the hood is less comfortable than it looks.”

“We entitled teen runaways deserve better than we got,” he said, ripping open a bag of, ugh, more fruity candy.

Imaginary Buffy would agree, but for just a minute, Buffy didn’t want to imagine anything. It hit her, so sudden that her knees shook a little bit, that _holy God, she was so lucky._ She was a walking death trap, and she had friend(s) who were willing to put up with that just to be near her. She asked Xander to upend his life to make her happy, and he ignored the fact that she had just broken his heart to make it happen. Who cared if he wasn’t a Pretty or out of her league? He was _here_ , and she was happy.

“I, for one,” she said, “have so much more than I ever deserved.”

He looked down at her, thrown by the sudden change in temperament, and she smiled up at him. “Thanks,” she said, maybe for the first time since they left.

She leaned in, taking a bite off the end of the licorice wand already dangling from his mouth. He blinked, slow and startled, and she grinned as she chewed. She had almost forgotten what it was like to have a boy look at her like that; like he was a deer, and she was the headlights. Xander looked like he knew he would be hit, and he did not look like he minded in the slightest.

(He did not make any jokes about sharing a hotel room this time. They didn’t do anything, but something funny was missing from the situation.

Xander was not making jokes, and Buffy felt like there was something serious going on.

Huh.)

“What if we stayed here?”

Xander looked over at her. It was Monday night, so he really shouldn’t have been surprised by the question. It clearly was not a weekend trip now; why shouldn’t she suggest making it permanent?

“We’d run out of money and die,” he said.

“I’d try to get a job at a mall,” she said, ignoring him. They were laying on a crappy blanket on the surprisingly hard sand, and it was easy to imagine anything she wanted. Not for an imaginary Buffy; for a real Buffy and a real Xander. “Maybe get my GED, but maybe not.”

There was silence, then a deep breath. “Maybe I’d take up some trade. I’m not really a college guy.”

Yes, yes, yes. “We’d get an apartment.”

“I’ve always wanted a dog.”

“No demons would ever find us. We could forget about all of it.”

“We are going back to Sunnydale eventually,” he said. “Right?”

Buffy liked seeing the stars in the desert. She loved LA, and Sunnydale had grown on her (the people had, at least), but there was something about the crazy amount of nothingness that made her feel almost safe.

“It’s nice here,” she said, almost an answer.

“We’re pretty much broke,” Xander said, almost a response.

“The stars are pretty.”

“I don’t feel right leaving Willow.”

“I forgot what it was like not to feel rushed, or stressed, or whatever.”

“What do you _want?_ ” he finally asked.

What she wanted was to have an answer to that question that mattered. She wanted to say what she wanted, and she wanted someone to say ‘okay, let’s make that happen.’ She wanted to be sixteen and act like it. She wanted Xander and Willow to be happy with her at the same time; she wanted to make them both happy without it being at the expense of the other. She wanted the outcome to make her happy, too.

“I want to be more like you,” she finally said.

Xander laughed, but it didn’t sound like he was smiling.

“No, really,” she insisted, sitting up on the blanket. “You can walk away. Not, like, right now—I still need a ride. But from the whole Slayer thing. You could stop and have a mortal life if you wanted to, and I envy that.”

“I get it,” he sighed. If they had been standing, she knew that he would be burying his hands in his pockets, doing the whole ‘woe is me, it’s so hard to be as unloved as I’ thing. “If I quit, nobody dies.”

“I would,” she said without thinking, and they look at each other with surprise. “I would die if you left,” she repeated, and it felt true in more ways than one.

“A Slayer needs her Slayer-ettes.” Xander said it with a smile that almost teased, but it left too much room for input to be a joke.

“You are so much more than a sidekick,” Buffy said, and she leaned forward to catch him in a swift, hard kiss.

Buffy wasn’t sure that she knew what romantic love was, and at sixteen, that was okay. She was rich in love in so many other ways. She did love Xander; not that way, exactly, but there was definitely something coloring her love for him that had not been there a few days prior. It was something lovely and intoxicating, and she wanted it by the gallon.

So Buffy kissed Xander, because it was suddenly of the utmost importance that he never, ever leave. She needed him here, now, in the middle of the desert. She needed him when they went home, and she would need him every day after that. She needed all of him, and why on earth wasn’t she taking all of him when he offered it up so willingly?

He made the strangest little hum when she first made contact, hands instinctively rising to catch her. He’d caught her as she fell so many times, but it was never because she was willingly leaning into him like this. He never had permission to run his hands up the lines of her ribcage, and she had never wanted to feel the slope of his surprisingly fantastic shoulders.

She could not remember if he had ever told her about his first kiss, but everything about him was relaxed while he did it now. His lips were pliant, his hands gentle and purposeful, his body leaning into hers like a cat into a sunbeam. Xander kissed her like each brush of skin would allow him to sink farther into her

(farther farther farther until neither of them would ever have to be lonely again)

and Buffy, while aware in the back of her mind that it was not possible, was just as willing to try.

When they finally split apart, Xander looked more worried than he did happy. The happiness was there, but it was bathed in shadow.

“I don’t want to be your rebound,” he said. “If you need to get over Angel, you should probably just beat on vampires for a while.”

“I don’t want you to be my rebound.” Buffy was still leaning into him, and she wanted to lick the line of his jaw. How had she never noticed?

(lucky, lucky, lucky)

“And I don’t want this to be some ‘thanks for the ride’ thing,” he said, the shadows receding.

“Xander.”

“‘Cause, like, I can be just friends, or I can be dating you. I can’t be something casual with you.”

“Xander.” Buffy did lick along his jawline then; making herself happy and Xander shut up was a win-win. He certainly didn’t complain. “I wasn’t ready before. I’m ready now, and I’ll still be ready later. I know that I missed the chance to go to the dance with you, but I’ll give you a yes for the next one.”

That was the answer to a thousand questions; some that had been asked, others that hadn’t even been thought. They would start the long drive home in the morning. They would figure things out once they got there, but Buffy wasn’t going to be running away. She hadn’t figured everything out yet, but it was time to talk to Giles about the future instead of pretending it wasn’t happening. Things were truly over with Angel, things were truly on with Xander, and it had nothing to do with settling or second-best. Sometimes, when everything was on uneven footing, you just needed something to hang onto. Buffy had known from the first that Xander was somebody she could hold, and she was starting to realize that safety and comfort didn’t have to be synonymous with boring or passionless.

Maybe a part of growing up was learning to pick battles; maybe love was deciding to battle for one person over and over again. Xander and Buffy had battled for one another over and over again, and she didn’t doubt that they would continue.

Xander really was a fantastic kisser. And as great as it was to look at his butt, touching it was even better.

(Buffy was not in love with Xander, and they both knew it. That was okay, though, since she could feel it lingering at the edge of her person, and they were both willing to wait until it came within reach.)

“We could stay here,” Xander said, and it took Buffy a long moment to figure out what he was talking about. Of course they would be staying in the library; they always spent afternoons there. What was he expecting them to do?

“I can still get that trade job, or whatever,” he continued. “We can just graduate first.”

Buffy’s lips curled. “I might go to college. Giles says that Slayers can get real jobs.”

“I’m saving up for my own car. All things considered, being grounded until I’m eighteen should help with that.”

She grimaced. If she was ungrounded by her eighteenth birthday, it would be a miracle. Joyce had not taken kindly to Buffy’s lie about the camping trip. Apparently ‘running away with her boyfriend’ was not responsible behavior for a sixteen year old; who knew? Still, it was a better excuse than anything Buffy could have come up with on her own. In a way, it was true.

“You sure know how to show a girl a good time,” Buffy said. “I’m sold. Sunnydale it is.”

Xander smiled. He had always smiled easily, but now it was like he never stopped. Happiness lingered in the lines of his face, and it made Buffy want to trace those lines until she was just as happy. It would not have taken long. These days, it never took long.

**Author's Note:**

> Is this bad? Yes. Did I write it in three days? Yes. Am I going to forget about this immediately and move on with my life as though I never wrote it? Yes.


End file.
